Book Review: Ring of Hell

By Rick Morris

When legendary pro wrestler Chris Benoit brutally massacred his family and then killed himself, many people, myself included, struggled to reconcile what we knew of this man, what we thought we knew and the horror that he ended up perpetrating. It all seemed so contradictory, the details of the different sides so disparate, that so many of us became reconciled to never knowing the full picture about what could have brought this family tragedy to reality. But author Matthew Randazzo V's shocking new book "Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry" does what I never thought possible: it takes the many seemingly disconnected threads of this man's life and weaves together a coherent whole that leads inexorably and sadly toward the blood-soaked weekend at the Benoit estate last summer.

[SIDE NOTE: I am very proud of my objectivity, and have displayed it here repeatedly by criticizing institutions that I love when justified, such as the Detroit Red Wings and the Cleveland Indians. But when I found out about this book in the last week, I knew that I would feel a need to read it and subsequently review it here and I feared that I could not be fully objective. Years ago, Mr. Randazzo and I used to visit some of the same industry forums, he largely as a poster, me largely as a lurker, but my memories of him were not fond ones. I'll not elaborate except to say that I found his forum persona overbearing and off-putting. In fairness, he was clearly a great and gifted writer and many talented creative types can come off that way. Additionally, as I've tried to familiarize myself with some of his other work this past week, I found some writing that puts his political views at great variance with my own -- and profound political differences have always been a threat to my potential for objectivity. Additionally, any writer who sees another get a book deal before him and does not feel at least a slight twinge probably doesn't have any professional pride. So, given my sometimes-overwrought potential for self-criticism, I was scared that if the book dissatisfied me that I'd be questioning myself about my real reasons for writing a bad review. Fortunately, as the next sentence will indicate, any qualms I had about anything I would write would prove to be badly misguided.]

This book is, quite simply, the best one in the genre of pro wrestling books that dates back almost a full decade.

Randazzo connects the dots in a manner that should perhaps have been more obvious to us, but was not at all. Chris Benoit's professional personality and private demons were not contradictory halves of a disconnected whole. His obsessive dedication to the business, his need to be perfect in his role as a pro grappler: these were SYMPTOMS of his overall crumbling psyche. In short, his madness was in plain sight the whole time, disguised as politeness with fans or hard work in the ring or any of the other aspects of his persona that made him appear to so many of us as the real (with apologies to Curt Hennig) "Mr. Perfect."

The link at the top of this review leads to a column from February in which I reviewed my thoughts at the time of the tragedy. Along with many others in the SportsTalkNetwork.com family, I posted repeatedly the night the murder-suicide was made public and in the days that followed. Chris Benoit was my favorite wrestler. In my column, I reprinted my posts in full even as I noted that they made me cringe by how naive I looked -- but I was grasping for a more full understanding as to how I and so many others were duped into thinking this man was personally as well as professionally great. On our FDH Lounge Internet TV show last summer, we reunited our friends Ryan Ward and Kyle Ross from the legendary smart mark show SUNDAY NIGHT SUBMISSION to help make sense of the matter. We couldn't. I admit that I saw Benoit as a professional role model, a symbol of persistence who proved that you could make it to the top of any industry with an unshakable work ethic. I came to the obvious conclusion that we never really knew him at all, but like everyone else I couldn't reconcile the pieces that didn't seem to fit.

Through his meticulous research, Randazzo managed to put them together. Benoit's entire life was a pathetic journey that led up to that infamous weekend in the Atlanta exurbs. A wiry and introverted Western Canadian boy, he took his first real meaning in life from watching his hero the Dynamite Kid compete in Stampede Wrestling. Kid, whose real name was Tom Billington, was perhaps the greatest technical pro wrestler of all time, and Benoit worshiped him. In ways that would seem funny if they didn't end up being so disturbing, Benoit was almost a precursor to "'Net smart marks" of today like myself with his strong appreciation for workrate. Benoit pumped himself full of steroids and other unhealthy growth substances and chased a pro career that began in the Stampede territory, led to a training stint with New Japan (more on that below) and then a triumphant return to Stampede (where he got to rub elbows with his ultimate hero professionally) before his early '90s tenure in Japan and Mexico led to the ECW/WCW/WWE sequence that defines him in the minds of most fans.

This book contains a plethora of amazing revelations about Benoit and so many of the surrounding characters on his road to infamy. Now, I have been queried by my friend, FDH Lounge Dignitary and SportsTalkNetwork.com President Paul Belfi whether I believe every last story I read in the book. The answer is of course no; this is an industry built on constantly working everyone else at all times, even when there is no apparent advantage to doing so. But I believe the vast majority of them and even the ones that are more questionable do add valuable color.

Case in point: an unnamed source, a WWE wrestler in the company in 1995, told Randazzo that HHH confided in him upon coming into the company, "I don't care what I have to do, but I'm going to run this place." Cue the "Mwhahahahahahaahaha" and twirling of villainous handlebar mustache. I don't blame Randazzo at all for putting this story in the book, but I'm dubious that he was told the truth. HHH was coming off a lower-middle-card stint in WCW and was in all likelihood just happy to have a better job at the time. The notion that he could have been Machiavellian and prescient enough to know then that he'd end up one day with the keys to the kingdom? Believe it if you want to.

But again, I do believe the vast majority of the stories in the book and there is an equal mix of on-the-record and off-the-record quotes in there. I've read some online reviews that objected to his use of materials such as shoot interview tapes for sourcing, but I have no problem with that as they are quotes on the public record.

I want to provide some flavor of what's in the book without giving away anything that might be deemed excessive by the lawyers over at Phoenix Books, so here's a list of generalities in terms of the most sensational materials:

^ Vince McMahon's 2004 mandate about the minimum size of new wrestlers being hired
^ The unparalleled con job Fidel Castro pulled on Antonio Inoki -- it's beyond anything you could imagine
^ What the Dynamite Kid did to his opponents while they were blading themselves
^ What the Dynamite Kid did right before his own wedding
^ How Stampede wrestlers might "rib" each other -- I'd call it committing felonies, personally
^ The hazing techniques of the New Japan dojo: banana rape, golden showers and drinking your own, uh, fluids, among others
^ The mob contract that drove the British Bulldogs out of the WWF
^ Horrible one-sided WWF contracts
^ The yakuza's methods of dealing with Big Van Vader
^ Ole Anderson's "scientific method" for proving Benoit was too small to make it in wrestling
^ Benoit's psychological pain about the incident that gave him the "Crippler" nickname
^ More legendary Paul Heyman con jobs
^ The never-told-before details on how Kevin Sullivan inadvertently sabotaged his own marriage with a storyline -- what's on the public record is only the tip of the iceberg
^ Sullivan's other behind-the-scenes shenanigans
^ Nancy Benoit's own oddities
^ Two incidents between Scott Hall and Benoit that were remarkable
^ Ric Flair and Arn Anderson road stories
^ The never-before-told story about the equipment that failed Owen Hart in Kansas City that tragic night -- and why it did
^ Vince Russo's aborted kid-toucher storyline
^ How Benoit would have mutilated himself on live television had WCW not released him in 2000
^ The extent to which the Radicalz screwed Shane Douglas
^ How the McMahons don't even let funerals get in the way of conducting business
^ The rib on Billy Jack Haynes that almost led to him murdering Vince McMahon
^ What led Scott Hall to think McMahon was the devil incarnate
^ Chyna and Eddy Guerrero -- why two drug abusers working together might have deepened both addictions
^ More behind-the-scenes anecdotes about Vince, Stephanie, HHH and their toadies than you can shake a stick at -- including stories of racism far beyond what got Michael Hayes recently suspended
^ Writer Dave Lagana's alleged sexual harassment of male and female wrestlers
^ How Benoit willingly kept wrestling, in reckless style no less, on a broken neck in 2001
^ Benoit's sense of torture at being on the sidelines due to injury in 2001-2002
^ How only top stars in WWE are allowed to use company trainers and physical therapists
^ Benoit's ultimate moment of triumph in 2004 -- undermined from the outset
^ Benoit's psychological collapse at the time of Eddy's passing
^ Nancy Benoit's "paper trail" -- the manner in which she chronicled through various means her husband's mental deterioration
^ How Vince's version of the Benoit tribute show was the result of him being boxed in by his own ego -- he felt that he had to proceed a certain route based on "the show goes on" with the Owen tragedy and the fact that he destroyed the "standard tribute show" in the "Vince got murdered" storyline
^ Evidence that Benoit was clutching at straws that God would somehow bring his son back to life before he hung himself from his weight bench
^ The chronology of the final tragic weekend

Some online reviews I've read find Randazzo's writing style to be distracting at best and counterproductive at worst. It's a matter of personal taste, so I'm not going to pronounce anyone wrong for their opinion, but I disagree. Randazzo has a strong and distinctive pattern of writing and it shows up constantly (i.e. touches such as referring to Benoit and Bret Hart in their WCW days as "deranged marks" and wondering, since Benoit apparently killed his son with his finishing maneuver, the Crippler Crossface, "did Benoit hear Jim Ross announcing in the background?"). The tone is absurd at times, but I feel that it matches the material perfectly. Again, others may disagree.

As a big follower of the Four Horsemen, I admit that I'd like to have seen the material on Benoit's tenure with the group in WCW fleshed out a bit more. Somebody like Mongo McMichael would have been a most unlikely character for Benoit to rub elbows with; the Horsemen aspect of the WCW stay is probably the weakest part of the book, but as you can tell from everything else I've noted, everything else more than makes up for it.

I appreciate also that Randazzo, while laying deserved blame mostly at the feet of Benoit (with the rest divided up among odious creatures like McMahon), does not take cheap shots at the fans at the very end for continuing to enjoy the spectacle of wrestling. Writer Irvin Muchnick has also provided outstanding coverage of the Benoit story, but he ends up with a judgmental "how can you fans still watch this without feeling the blood on your hands?" point of view that is aggravating. Randazzo lets us draw our own conclusions about how we should let these revelations color our enjoyment of the industry.

To sum up: were it not for fact that pro wrestling is the redheaded stepchild of American society, Randazzo would likely be up for a Pulitzer Prize for the journalism contained in this book. It's the most honest book ever written about the business, surpassing tomes penned by those in the industry because he's not holding anything back to protect himself or others. This book sets a new standard for exposing the truth about pro wrestling, one that may never be topped and certainly won't be anytime soon.

5 times ‘rasslin could have gone national sooner

By Rick Morris

Pro wrestling existed as a regional, highly segmented enterprise until it was pulled into the modern age in 1983 by Vincent Kennedy McMahon. He was in the process of buying out his father and his father’s partners and taking full control of the promotion. He was not content to merely control the Upper Northeast territory, lucrative though it was with such metropolises as New York, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and D.C. He wanted to be the boss of the first territory without borders – and he succeeded.

Previously, the barons of each area maintained a gentleman’s agreement that kept them from expanding into other territories. Although some minor promotional skirmishes erupted from time to time, the “dons” of old-time wrestling respected promotional boundaries for the most part and did not “run opposition” against one another. The overwhelming majority of promoters prior to 1983 belonged to the National Wrestling Alliance, a governing body that had a “traveling” world champion (as opposed to a “company” champion, a traveling champion defended his title in multiple territories anywhere and everywhere). The two major exceptions to the rule of NWA governance were Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association (AWA – an Upper Midwest territory that broke away from the NWA) and Vince McMahon Senior’s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF – the aforementioned Northeast territory that was later renamed the WWF and then the WWE). While Vince Senior and Gagne both left the NWA auspices in the early 1960s, they still refrained from active competition against any NWA promoters, and indeed, kept some measure of co-promotion from them with time to time.

When Vincent Kennedy McMahon (often referred to as Vince Junior) took over the WWF and launched his national expansion plan, it is impossible to overstate how much his actions violated the “gentleman’s club” atmosphere that ruled the industry for the previous several decades. The direction he charted was so shocking that there are some stories that circulate to this day that indicate that Vince Senior was strongly opposed to it out of loyalty to his friends and colleagues. At a bare minimum, it’s been confirmed by those close to him that he did at least call his fellow promoters to warn them that they were going to be under attack. The full story of Vince Senior’s attitude about the expansion may never be known, since he perished due to cancer in 1984.

Vince Junior’s actions unleashed complete fury among his peers – now competitors – because with few exceptions he was now steamrolling them in their own backyards. A short-lived competing “national promotion” called Pro Wrestling USA existed in 1984-85 and it was nothing more than an amalgam of the biggest regional promotions (mostly NWA but also the AWA). It collapsed because, predictably, many of these chieftains imagined themselves the biggest of the bunch and nobody wanted to take a back seat to their peers.

These potentates were angry both out of fear for their own survival (a fear that would be justified, as most would be out of business by the end of the decade once Vince buried some and the Charlotte-based Jim Crockett Promotions would swallow most remaining NWA-affiliated promotions), but also in some cases jealousy. When Vince brought the red-hot Hulk Hogan (fresh off of his Rocky III role) back to the WWF in 1983 and set in motion big plans with MTV, Cyndi Lauper and other national entities, he was taking advantage of circumstances that were rare, but not quite unprecedented. On at least five previous occasions, promoters had potential opportunities to throw off their regional shackles – only one of them attempted to do so and he did so, unsuccessfully, in the same maverick mode McMahon would emulate about a decade later. Had the others tried, the course of history would have been different because Vince Junior wouldn’t have been going against as much precedent in doing what he did. But it’s another matter altogether to imagine that any of these wrestling minds could have broken through as Vince Junior did and made the jump successfully. The fact that he jumped on the back of cable television as it transformed American society in the 1980s (through the troika of CNN, ESPN and MTV) was the most important indicator that only that man in that circumstance could have managed the transformation of the industry. But it’s always fun to look at what-ifs in whatever realm – so here are the five instances that could have preceded Vince Junior’s efforts in 1983-84.

^ 1965: NWA/WWF Title Unification bout falls apart. In Lou Thesz’s book “Hooker,” he recounts the negotiations that took place between NWA President Sam Muchnick and Vince Senior. Having just broken away from the NWA two years earlier, Vince and his partner Toots Mondt wanted additional validation for their already-successful champion Bruno Sammartino. Specifically, they wanted to set up a title unification match with Thesz, then the NWA World Champion. This match would take place on closed-circuit television across the country, then an unthinkable aspect of promotion for pro wrestling. Thesz was to drop the belt to Bruno, thus unifying the world title claims, then win back only the NWA belt at an unspecified date in the future. Thesz was unimpressed with the amount of money he was being offered, especially because the “New York swifties” (his colorful name for Vince Senior and Company) were looking at a potential payday in excess of seven figures. A legitimate amateur wrestler and tough guy (the term “hooker,” like the similar moniker of “shooter,” referred to a wrestler who could apply holds in such a manner to win legitimately, not just in a worked, professional-style “match”), Thesz was a throwback to a time when the traveling champion had to be able to handle any situation in the ring lest a local promoter try to pull a fast one by having his local star “win the world title” in an unscheduled manner. As such, if he didn’t cooperate with the limited-in-skill Sammartino in the ring, Bruno wouldn’t necessarily leave with the belt even if that was the sanctioned outcome. Muchnick was happy with the payoff he was to receive and tried to order Thesz to go along with the match, but was unsuccessful due to Thesz’s threat to double-cross him on the match finish if he did. Had the match actually come off, Vince Senior’s resolve not to cross territorial boundaries might have weakened in the face of what could have been monster profits at the gate and from closed-circuit. While not expressly identified as an influence for national expansion, Mondt was always an advocate for a very aggressive manner of operation and remained so until his retirement in 1969. The effects of receiving big money from a “one time only” crossing of promotional boundaries via closed circuit could have transformed the promotional mindset of the Vince crew – in addition to controlling the unified WWF/NWA champion in Sammartino. There was some doubt as to whether Bruno’s Italian character would be as over in the rest of the country as it was in the Northeast, but these fears were ridiculous – his hometown and base of operations was Pittsburgh, where he was insanely popular and Pittsburgh is very representative of Middle America. Ultimately, though, the failure to financially satisfy Thesz prevented the window of opportunity from opening for the formation of the first national promotion back in the 1960s.

^ 1975: A maverick from “outside the family” tries, and fails, to establish a national beachhead. Those who have compared pro wrestling to La Cosa Nostra over the years need look no further than the similarities in terms of how competition is tolerated – or more accurately, how it was not tolerated. “Running opposition” against an established operation in an area was the biggest no-no among the kingpins of the pro circuit back in the day. So one can only imagine the shock and anger coursing through booking offices across the country when an interloper not presently recognized as an NWA or NWA-friendly promoter tried to set up shop nationally. Eddie Einhorn, a longtime sports television executive who, among other things, helped pioneer big-time college basketball coverage (and is now an executive with the Chicago White Sox), picked up the pieces of the NWF promotion that ran in upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it folded. He signed several big-name stars of the day, including Mil Mascaras (who would serve as his first heavyweight champion), Ivan Koloff, Ernie Ladd, Ox Baker and announcer Jack Reynolds (the voice of NWF wrestling, later to be heard in the WWF and also the father of longtime Cleveland radio and television sports personality Tony Rizzo) for his brand-new IWA promotion. With national syndication, a slot on New York’s cable superstation WOR and cutting-edge 1970s tools such as instant replay being deployed, this TV bigshot was trying to make a huge splash. His early shows against Crockett Promotions in the Mid-Atlantic area and against WWWF in the Northeast got the attention of the powers that be and ultimately, they waged a successful counterattack by invoking exclusive clauses to keep the IWA out of any prime arenas. Court fights to end these practices were unsuccessful and as such, the life span of the promotion only lasted from January to October 1975 – enough time to cost Einhorn a cool half a million. His attempt to change the system from the outside was unsuccessful and demonstrated to Vince Junior that the way to build a nationwide territory was to start with an established one and build from there. Interestingly, Einhorn would return to the wrestling wars nine years later as part of the aforementioned Pro Wrestling USA super-promotion that the lead promoters of the day thought could collectively bury McMahon. But adding the chief outlaw of yesterday to a volatile mix of promoters who already didn’t trust each other fully was doomed to failure and both of Einhorn’s ventures ended up going down in pro wrestling history as “what might have been” footnotes.

^ 1976: Ted Turner puts WTBS on national cable and Georgia Championship Wrestling goes along for the ride. Following the IWA show on WOR by just a year, the second wrestling program to be televised nationally since the Dumont Network broadcasts of the 1950s happened by accident – or at least, not by design of the promoters, who were irrelevant to the decision. In the 1970s, business mogul Ted Turner was in the process of expanding his business base beyond the Southeast. He decided to take his television station, Atlanta’s Channel 17, and put it up on the satellite so that it could be viewed coast-to-coast on cable television. His newly-purchased Atlanta Braves were envisioned to be a prime beneficiary, since they would be the first Major League Baseball team with games that could be seen nationally. But it would be the Georgia Championship Wrestling promotion that would eventually realize some unexpected gains. As the 1980s dawned, the territory expanded into uncontested “open” areas in Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia. Executives realized almost by accident that they were gaining in popularity in certain geographic areas not as a result of the syndicated program, but because of the nationally televised Saturday evening program on the rebranded “SuperStation.” However, the makeup of the Georgia territory kept the promotional braintrust from having any national designs. In addition to the aforementioned verboten nature of promoting shows in “other people’s territories,” the Georgia group was constrained by its NWA membership. They exchanged booking dates for the NWA World Champion with all of the other local affiliates, and for that matter, the promotion also depended on moving talent back and forth between the local territories. At that time, it was widely perceived that territories would go stale with too much of the same talent around for too long, so wrestlers moved fairly freely between many of the different areas. The Georgia promotion would have had to create its own “world champion” and lock down a core group of talent if they were to break off from the NWA and promote shows in many of the major cities across the country that viewed their shows on TBS. Additionally, in the early ‘80s, Ole Anderson held the position of “booker” (matchmaker) for both the Georgia and Mid-Atlantic territories and there’s no way the two territories could have maintained a sufficient affiliated basis with Georgia firmly outside the NWA fold. Ultimately, the TBS show did serve as the basis for Crockett’s Mid-Atlantic group to launch a national expansion in the mid-‘80s – once Vince Junior had already gone national and Crockett had worked within the NWA to buy up many territories, including Georgia. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Georgia promoters could have surmounted the obstacles they’d have faced by “following their television show” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

^ 1978: Vince Senior takes the title off the Hogan precursor. When Bruno’s final title run came to an end in April of 1977, Vince Senior traveled an unconventional path by elevating Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic, jive-talking, flashy-dressing heel muscleman from the Southwest. Wrestlers without much technical wrestling ability had traditionally been relegated to the upper midcard at best, but there was something special about Graham’s package of qualifications that made him an intriguing choice to lead a promotion as champion. The gamble paid off, as Graham provided the spark the New York office sought and sold out buildings in both the bigger and smaller markets all over the area. Notwithstanding the gutsy decision to put Graham on top, however, Vince Senior stayed true to his original plan of getting the territory red-hot with Graham in order for his young star “The All-American Boy” Bob Backlund to become established immediately as a superstar by toppling him for the title. With the area on fire, however, Graham believed that he should be turned babyface as significant portions of the fanbase were already cheering him despite the unsportsmanlike tendencies of his character. Vince Junior, who would light the world on fire with a very similar character to what Graham envisioned in Hulk Hogan six years later, was sympathetic to this wish, but wielded no real power in his father’s enterprise. Graham dropped the title to Backlund as anticipated in February of 1978, never to return to his peak level of stardom. In Graham’s subsequent WWE-produced career retrospective DVD “20 Years Too Soon,” he expresses frustration that he did not get the opportunity to deploy what would have been for all intents and purposes the same character that Hogan conquered the world with in 1984. With hated Russian wrestler Ivan Koloff as a former tag team partner, Graham had an ideal opponent to facilitate a babyface turn – and as the Sgt. Slaughter/Iron Sheik feud also from 1984, demonstrated, there was huge box office potential in a rivalry that could appeal to jingoism at a time when the United States was perceived as struggling to deal with some of its foreign adversaries. Granted, Vince Senior did not have Mondt around as an aggressive influence and had settled back into a friendly association with the NWA, so he wasn’t philosophically inclined to push full-steam ahead nationally even if Graham had actually gotten a chance to become Hogan-before-Hogan. Plus, without a national television outlet, the WWWF would have faced significant obstacles in taking their success in the huge Northeast media outlets nationwide. But he also would have had the industry’s first real larger-than-life figure as a world champion and having that kind of mold-breaker on top is a wild card that makes calculating the odds of success fairly difficult.

1982: World Class Championship Wrestling goes on Trinity and builds a substantial syndication network, with unprecedented production values. Much in the same way that Vince Junior imprinted his very different vision of wrestling on the WWF when he took it over, Fritz Von Erich transformed his country greatly at about the time he retired as an active wrestler to focus on promoting in 1982. With his young, athletic, photogenic and insanely over sons about to anchor the promotion for as far as the eye could see, he changed the entire feel of Texas wrestling to reflect the new age in every possible way. A new TV crew came in and brought a revolutionary, high-tech feel to the televising of pro wrestling. Older names who had anchored the area for so long were replaced with a new generation of exciting wrestlers. And eventually, a syndication network sprung up in far-flung areas and his show landed on the national evangelical cable channel Trinity Broadcasting Network (World Class was fairly overt in its pro-Christian messages, more so than most wrestling organizations before or since). Like the Georgia promoters a few years earlier, though, Fritz refused to “follow his program” with actual shows across territorial lines, as he did not want to become an outcast in his fraternity of promoters (even when he broke away from the NWA in 1986 and proclaimed his company champion Rick Rude as the “World Class World Heavyweight Champion,” he ignored his sons’ pleas and still refused to compete against his former NWA breathren!). And while he had a host of fresh, new, over wrestlers (exemplified by, but not limited to, his own sons), it’s debatable if he’d have had enough organizational depth to maintain a national promotion, and the drug problems of his sons and many other core wrestlers might have choked such an effort in the cradle. But it remains a very interesting what-if regardless of all that.

Kentucky Derby picks

By Rick Morris

Win: Colonel John
Place: Visionaire
Show: Monba

I'm not buying the hype on Big Brown, although I was surprised that he was taken third in our draft/pool (see below). There's no in-between, however, he'll either win going away or finish out of the money altogether. Colonel John is a strong horse, a classic favorite, and I like him to bring it home. Visionaire and Monba are not the all-or-nothing type like Big Brown is (on this stage, anyway), so I look for each to be nosed out slightly.

Quick side note: I know that networks are trying to squeeze every last penny they can out sponsors so that they can recoup the money spent on their precious rights fees, but enough with the red carpet specials before a big SPORTING EVENT, NOT A HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION! It was bad enough with that pompous twit Ryan Seacrest bringing his fey presence to the Super Bowl; I don't need to see some posturing poof with highlights in his hair interviewing celebrities who are gravy-training a legitimate sporting event to keep a high public profile. The sight of Vince McMahon on the red carpet was quite a sight, however, as he continues his entertaining yet ultimately futile quest to be taken seriously as someone who produces something other than a low-rent ripoff of wrestling's glory days.

Here are the results of the Triple Crown draft held on the FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER program on April 30:

ROUND ONE
1. Rick Morris: Colonel John
2. Bob Glassman: Pyro
3. Jason Jones: Big Brown
4. Anthony Petrone: Gayego

ROUND TWO
1. Anthony: Tale of Ekati
2. Jason: Court Vision
3. Bob: Z Fortune
4. Rick: Recapturetheglory

ROUND THREE
1. Rick: Monba
2. Bob: Eight Belles
3. Jason: Visionaire
4. Anthony: Cool Coal Man

It's still real to me, dag-nabbit!

By Rick Morris

This was published a day early, so I don't think it's Wade Keller's idea of an April Fool's Day joke. Bitter Indy Guy has risen up in all his glory to unleash a bitter rant on Vince McMahon for booking Floyd Mayweather to win the match against The Big Show at WrestleMania 24.

"[Did] Vince McMahon ever consider the fact that the people who bought tickets to WrestleMania might actually be wrestling fans and that they just might want to see a wrestler win? Did anyone notice that Big Show was being heartily cheered when he was thrashing Mayweather?"

Wow. The people actually cheered for the wrestler pushed as the babyface and booed the heel. Stop the f'ing presses.

I wonder if Bitter Indy Guy expressed similar outrage at the WWE's sham of a "wellness policy" or any other one of the countless crimes against decency perpetrated by Vinny Mac in his quarter-century atop the business. No, that's a stupid question, of course he didn't. "BIG's" priority in life is defending the image of pro wrestling against those from other industries who want to come in and get their hand raised.

As the old saying goes, the biggest marks are the ones behind the curtain.

For infinitely more sane and comprehensive coverage of the show, check out our good buddy Russ Cohen at Wrestleology.

Vinny Mac flips the bird to Congress

By Rick Morris

Vincent Kennedy McMahon is a man who thinks he can overcome any obstacle. He shattered the industry's regional traditions in the 1980s by taking his company national and he beat back the corporate threat of Turner Broadcasting in the late 1990s when they surpassed him as the biggest name in the industry -- but the most relevant experience to present circumstances came in the period in between, when the federal government pursued him on felony steroid charges and he beat the rap.

Now, he's under the gun again as Congress is moving seamlessly from an investigation of MLB's shameful era to a peek at the man who may well have set the example for baseball's juiced-up days -- good old Vinny Mac. He defied an invitation to appear before Congress this past week and now the titans of Capitol Hill are angry.

We've talked about this looming case on The Lounge program for months now. With Democrats back in control of Congress, Henry Waxman now wields the gavel for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and he is, as we noted, probably the biggest egomaniac in a body full of them. Bobby Rush, the aggrieved party this week when VKM blew off Congress, is no shrinking violet himself.

Vince McMahon has overcome many obstacles in his life. Now, this is not to say that I admire him, because I don't, but I will admit (in a "give the devil his due kind of way") that he has won many high-powered battles in life. But he has never faced the combination of power, ego and thirst for election-year headlines that he'll eventually encounter in the U.S. House of Representatives. He's just arrogant enough to plunge into the perjury trap that is already being baited by Congressmen as we speak. I look for the insane old Irishman to continue to thumb his nose at Congress between now and the hearing he'll inevitably have to attend and that will just inflame his adversaries even more. When you consider the fact that Vince Senior had his promotional base of operations in the Potomac area back in the day, how ironic would it be for his son to have his Waterloo right there in D.C.?

Big rasslin' coverage from UK Sun newspaper

By Rick Morris

The Sun newspaper in Great Britain has long featured coverage of the industry which has come to be known as "sports entertainment," but it is not generally known as a "go-to place" for reading about industry happenings. Give them credit; they are working very hard to become such a destination -- and quickly.

In anticipation of the new "Heyman Hustle" project they are launching this Monday with deposed ECW strongman Paul Heyman, The Sun printed a follow-up to the intriguing first installment of their interview with the Extreme Genius. In it, he reveals that his belief is that Vince McMahon has looked to the Queen of England of all people in terms of setting up a succession plan and he gives thought-provoking analysis of the entire US wrestling landscape.

His new "Hustle" project promises to be full of classic Paul E. con-man entertainment. The first episode will feature a wild quest to obtain footage of the new crew of SURVIVOR prior to the season launch against the wishes of producers. It sounds compelling and I'll be watching, that's for sure.

The Sun also printed an article that came out of an interview with Hulk Hogan, in which he makes the (probably) outlandish claim that he and partner-in-crime Eric Bischoff are on the verge of starting a new promotion to go head-to-head with WWE. In this account, Hogan takes some shots at WWE and claims that he's got a TV network ready to sign off on this project. Ooohkay. As Dave Meltzer has pointed out, Hogan postures every year for a big WrestleMania payday and with the big event just over a month away, the Orange Goblin's claims should be taken with an entire shaker of salt.

It is intriguing to contemplate the talent available to a startup promotion, even if you consider everyone at TNA and ROH off-limits due to their contract situations (and it is by no means certain that you couldn't use ROH wrestlers). Of course, with ego and politics involved, most of the individuals listed below would never attempt such a move (especially in terms of having to deal with the Hogan/Bischoff gaga), but it's fun to contemplate some possibilities nonetheless:

^ Billy Kidman (just kidding)
^ Heyman (maybe in a managerial/commissioner role, leaving aside the past hate between he and ATM Eric)
^ Randy Savage (assuming the latest round of Hogan hate is a work)
^ Rob Van Dam
^ Jerry Lynn (hook up RVD and him for another five-star match!)
^ Bobby Lashley
^ Brock Lesnar (or any other MMA stars who can be lured to a wrestling promotion)
^ wrestlers from Japan and/or Mexico in talent exchanges reminiscent of those Bischoff has forged before
^ Juventud Guerrera
^ Rikishi
^ King Kong Bundy
^ Terry Funk (maybe in a commissioner/part-time competitor role)
^ any of the WWE Divas who have been let go the past few years
^ The Sandman
^ Raven
^ 2 Cold Scorpio
^ Daivari
^ Ricky Reyes

Additionally, I've long believed that the Japanese concept of recycling young wrestlers under the "Tiger Mask" identity could work here. I think that young wrestlers under the banner of "Masked Superstar" and "The Super Destroyers" could work if explained as a tribute to the original stars and you could get away with giving spots to three young and cheap kids. Assuming any kind of bankroll behind a promotion with such grandiose plans, it's easy to see that individual egos would be the major impediment to getting an operation off the ground, not the lack of famous and/or skilled talent.

WWE's five top challenges of 2008

By Rick Morris

If you believe the generally accepted notion that the last wrestling boom ended somewhere in the implosion of the horrible "InVasion" of WCW/ECW in 2001, the WWE has now endured a trough longer than the one between the end of the first national boom and the start of the second -- assuming, again that we stipulate that the first one ended somewhere in the middle of the steroid scandal/Hogan "retirement" of 1992 and the second one picked up during the ascension of Steve Austin's character in 1997. While this fact doesn't seem true, it is. It doesn't appear to be the case because the programming style on RAW and Smackdown has changed little since the days when "crash TV" was the official mantra of the company (granted, the worst excesses of that era like uniformly short matches have gone by the boards and the in-ring product is now "WWE style" without any trace of "hardcore").

As such, in the interest of hopefully being provided compelling television like it was in the late '90s (and in the naive hope the company might aspire again to maximize its potential), here are the five challenges of 2008 that, if met, could conceivably pave the way for a big upswing in business.

1. Sort out the muddle of top stars on RAW, especially the faces. Ever since the brand split began in 2002, RAW has clearly been the "A" division. But with all of the injured stars of the last year back (at least the ones who are coming back, so we're not including Bobby "we wish him well in his future endeavors" Lashley here) on the roster, the upper echelon is too crowded, especially on the face side of the ledger. Jeff Hardy needed to be elevated to WWE Champion status already, as we have documented. Chris Jericho was justifiably treated as a big deal when he came back, then his return was wasted on a one-month hot-shot program that even Helen Keller could have told them was going to bomb. HHH and Shawn Michaels are always going to be pushed heavily for reasons documented all over the Internet. And now John Cena is back in action and he's the man who has been pushed as the face of the company since coming over from Smackdown in the summer of '05. Most of these stars are being wasted if they're not at least on the periphery of the WWE title picture at all times, and most can't be, especially when a fellow babyface is holding the title. As for elevating a worthy mid-card face to this level (such as Finlay, assuming he stays on RAW to pursue a Vince McMahon feud) -- you can forget it with this logjam in the way. On the heel side, there's not nearly the same depth with Randy Orton far and away #1 on the depth chart, a recently returned JBL (out of action for nearly two years, don't forget) #2 by default and some suspect performers behind them -- Umaga has been "returning favors" to main event faces on his way back down the ladder since his "unbeatable savage" persona peaked with the Cena title feud and Mr. Kennedy's push to the main event became much more gradual after his drug suspension. RAW is in the same boat WCW was in 10 years ago when it had a ton of wrestlers worthy of being in the main event based on name value (just to name a few: Hogan, Hall, Nash, Sting, Luger, Savage, Hart, Flair, Goldberg, Piper, The Giant) but not enough spots to go around. Call it the "Portland Trailblazer Effect," referencing the period about five years ago when that NBA squad tried to buy every big-name star it could only to find out that it could not effectively use them all. Unlike the now-defunct WCW and the Blazers of recent vintage, RAW has an answer right under its nose: send over some stars (realistically, Hardy and Jericho are probably the only ones who wouldn't balk) to Smackdown in this year's "draft" -- but given that the company has used that device every year with the sole goal of strengthening the star power of the "Monday Night Flagship," don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

2. Get John Cena over with the ENTIRE crowd. After receiving the mother of all surprise pops from the Royal Rumble crowd last Sunday night, Cena returned in record time to getting split reactions from the crowd that night and the next evening on RAW from the notoriously rough Philly crowd. We have already enumerated the problems with Cena's presentation since he first came to RAW in '05 and they roughly coincide with the subtle adoption of some of the straight-laced dynamics of Cena's character in "The Marine" movie. The answer to the problem of Cena's rejection by large parts of the young male audience is simple: to paraphrase a political cliche of the 1980s, let Cena be Cena. The John Cena of early autumn 2003 was a cocky, funny, appealing character ripping off wild, entertaining freestyle raps. The crowd, including and especially the element that loathes him now, was dying to get behind him. It's impossible to reconcile his place in the hearts of the fans just over four years ago versus where he is right now. Bring back that John Cena and dump the current lackluster persona somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

3. Capitalize on the WrestleMania momentum. While this might seem like a simple concept, the WWE has not been able to build off of great 'Mania business this decade. The company relentlessly pushed WrestleMania 20 for an entire year and was rewarded with a great buyrate, but it didn't lead to a big lasting uptick in business. Last year, the Donald Trump angle was arguably the biggest celebrity participation since Mike Tyson gave the final boost to the young boom back at 'Mania 14, but Trump was out of sight, out of mind right after the event and Lashley did not benefit from a lasting "rub" from the billionaire. Keep the momentum rolling through the year and the push of WrestleMania 25 may end up solidifying a new wrestling boom.

4. While Edge should be used to elevate others, don't let him lose heat from his associations. Giving the World Champion two "Edgeheads" as sidekicks was a horrible idea -- wrestlers should not be immediately elevated from the lower-midcard to status as associates to Edge, even in the role of flunkies. Edge appears to be on the verge of presiding over a heel group that will dominate Smackdown and ECW and presumably, his new sidekicks will have the WWE tag titles in short order -- but they are going to have to be believable champs. JBL suffered for being surrounded by nobodies (in the eyes of the fans) when he assembled his infamous "Cabinet" of 2004-05. Edge is the first legitimate franchise main event heel created by the company in years and is arguably the best since the emergence of HHH in that role in 1999 and Angle in 2000. They can't afford to defuse his heat with associates who do not reflect his true worth to the company.

5. Find at least a semblance of justification for the continued presence of ECW. The storyline submersion of ECW into Smackdown is picking up more steam with each week. Sharing talent back and forth between the shows does make sense and is logical logistically since the company films the shows on the same night and the talent tours together anyway. But in a reality where "ECW rules" matches are the "extreme" exception to the rule, Joey Styles' character has made his peace with the term "sports entertainment" during the Sci-Fi broadcasts and most of the "Originals" have been run off capriciously, remind me again what relevant place in the world the letters "E," "C" and "W" have in the year 2008! The company's booking of the ECW Title (the same belt known in a better time and place as the "ECW World Title") hit a new low when the belt was placed on a wrestler just elevated from the midcard, Chavo Guerrero. Now, I think Chavo is a great wrestler and speaker and is hugely underrated because he's always been in Uncle Eddy's shadow. But the reality is that he's been a midcard player for his entire WWE career. While he is an appropriate choice to be elevated to the main event scene, the company should have done that in an orderly manner rather than just throwing him haphazardly into a feud with C.M. Punk. This booking reeks of how the WWE had JBL as a beer-swilling tough guy face in the midcard one week and a rich, dastardly main event heel literally the next week wrestling Eddy Guerrero for the big prize. Chavo isn't off to a great start as a credible franchise player as someone never even remotely booked as such a threat previously, and his recent adoption of the persona of another of Edge's lackeys is not going to redound to the benefit of the ECW brand. Viewers need to be given a reason to take the ECW brand seriously. Even if the virtual merger with Smackdown continues to gain momentum, what remains of the brand needs to be given at least some credibility -- because at this point in the eyes of the fans, RAW still outweighs the impact of Smackdown and ECW put together. At the rate ECW is degenerating and risking bringing down Smackdown's value with it, the brand split is degenerating into a de facto three-tier feeder system -- and that doesn't do the company any good at all.

Wrestling heels who should have turned

By Rick Morris

My post from the last week addressing Vince McMahon spitting in the face of his fans by not elevating Jeff Hardy to become a legitimate main-event player at the Royal Rumble, combined with my stint as a guest co-host on Pro Wrestling Insider on SportsTalkNetwork.com this past Tuesday night where we elaborated on the Superstar Billy Graham precedent and others in company history, led me to wonder about other times promoters dropped the ball.

This column does not delve much into situations like that of Jeff Hardy, because Hardy was a red-hot babyface who could have taken the final step into superstardom. Rather, I will examine situations involving Graham and other insanely over heels who could have parlayed their status into main-event face runs. I rank them in order of the impact I feel that they could have had on the business had they been given a chance to convert the cache of their bad guy personas into dramatic face turns.

1. Superstar Billy Graham (circa 1978). I covered his situation a bit in the aforementioned previous column, but the mind still reels at the alternate universe possibilities if the WWWF had decided to make him "Hulk Hogan before there was Hulk Hogan" back in '78. As the man who basically invented the colorful, arrogant musclehead persona in the business, he was attracting unbelievable crowd heat before dropping the strap in very anticlimactic fashion to the charisma-challenged Bob Backlund in February of 1978. Had Graham instead been attacked by former tag team partner Ivan Koloff, how wild would the New York territory have been for his before-his-time character as a sanctioned crowd favorite instead of cult antihero face? We'll never know.

2. Ric Flair (circa 1987 or 1988). We saw in late 1989 and early 1990 how popular Flair could be even with the Four Horsemen by his side. He was only turned heel again in February 1990 to make way for Sting as the #1 face in the NWA at the time. Now, Dusty Rhodes as the me-first booker would have never shared the fan favorite spotlight with Flair and the Horsemen in the '80s, so this is another pipe dream. But "what if's" are very fun to imagine, and few more so than this one. Imagine a conglomerate formed by mid-level heel managers like Jim Cornette and Paul Jones tiring of the Horsemen dominating the title picture and launching a vicious attack on Flair and his cohorts (the Blanchard/Anderson vs. Midnight Express feud of 1988 was a miniature version of what might have been, but it was cut short by Tully and Arn splitting for the WWF in September). Imagine the ultimate "strange bedfellows" situation, Dusty having to tag up with the Horsemen for War Games matches back in the mid-'80s. The Four Horsemen retrospective DVD put out in the last few years by WWE makes clear just how much the fans seemed to be dying to have a reason to outright root for Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen. What if they were turned face during the phase when they were drawing their strongest collective crowd reactions? Ric Flair could have had great main event matches against strong heels (they could have accomplished this merely by never turning Luger face in '87, keeping Sting heel after the UFW merger, etc.).

3. Nick Bockwinkel (circa 1980-84). I admit it, I'm going through a huge Nick Bockwinkel markout phase, hence the videos you will now see for the time being on the right-hand column of this page. He gave perhaps the most articulate interviews of all time and could generate outstanding crowd heat -- plus he had a good moveset and could execute excellent matches all the time. Imagine him breaking away from Bobby Heenan and feuding with the Heenan Family. Imagine if such a feud started in 1980 after Bock lost the AWA World Title back to Verne Gagne for the last time and if Gagne/Bock had joined forces for tag matches prior to Gagne dropping the title to his "new friend" in his retirement match, "a respect match" (as with Dusty's ego being the impediment to Scenario #2, Gagne's selfish desire to "retire as World Champion" drained credibility from the belt and would have easily precluded this smart business decision). The fans would have really gotten behind the cocky, tanned, smooth-talking Hollywood champ battling the bad guys. If the AWA could turn such hated bad guys as Crusher, Bruiser and Mad Dog Vachon face to great success, there's no question this would have worked. Why wasn't it tried? In all likelihood, it's because Bockwinkel's vast credibility, as a great-drawing titleholder from 1975 to 1980, would have been the foundation for a face run that could have even eclipsed the popularity of Verne Gagne himself. And nobody is ever allowed to surpass the booker -- that's the first lesson of pro wrestling. Even if Bock's turn had been saved for the end of the AWA Heenan era in 1984, he still would have been way more over than Rick Martel, the white-bread babyface who inexplicably got a face title run with the belt for a year and a half when Gagne was doubling down on pure scientific wrestling in the face of Vince's looming "sports entertainment" empire.

4. Arn Anderson (circa 1991-1992). Another admission -- I am a tremendous Double A mark. But I think that if you look back at Gene and Ole Anderson in the 1970s or Ole and Arn in the 1980s, they almost fell into that cult face classification in that there were a lot of fans who cheered because of their toughness and greatness. Picture Arn as a "lone wolf" tweener-type face battling the Dangerous Alliance and holding them off for the World Title. Picture Arn doing battle with Big Van Vader during the behemoth's heyday. WCW probably could not have gained on WWF at that time no matter what they tried, but Arn Anderson riding the cheers of the crowd all the way to the top certainly would have been outside the box -- and there was no more public acclaim for a Ron Simmons title run then than there was for an Arn championship opportunity.

5. Finlay (circa 2007). The crowds are reacting well to Finlay in his role as a newly-turned face as part of the "Littlest McMahon" storyline. But I have long maintained that his tough-guy style, which has faint elements of a 1996-97 Steve Austin flair to it, would be massively over if he were going against the bad guys. When Smackdown was suffering the period of countless main event injuries last year, could they really have done worse than to try Finlay on top as a babyface? The question answers itself -- this is a company that wasted several months on The Great Khali as a monster heel champion when they didn't even trust him to wrestle an important pay-per-view match the previous year.

Benoit family tragedy -- a look back

By Rick Morris

This column tackles the stages of grief a person goes through as a fan when somebody you admire passes away suddenly and shockingly -- and you find out that the person committed monstrous, heinous crimes and was completely unworthy of your respect. The person going through those phases was me, last June. I'm not someone who engages in a lot of writing about personal topics involving myself, but as a writer and someone fascinated by human psychology, I was really blown away by what I expressed at the time and I knew that others of similar interests would be enthralled as well.

Inspired by a couple of different factors (Jason's recent post about leaving thoughts on message boards and my realization that the first post-Benoit WrestleMania is just round the corner), I decided to revisit my thoughts at the time of the Benoit murder-suicide last summer. This blog was still almost two months away from being created, but I was posting regularly on the wrestling message board at SportsTalkNetwork.com. One of my associates at STN remarked to me that my participation in the Benoit tragedy thread almost amounted to a live-blog over several days as the evolution of my emotions and analysis was on full display -- the necessary background here is that Chris Benoit was my favorite wrestler and somebody I personally admired as an example of great perseverance in his career. I do find this as I look back a fascinating display of evolving thinking under unthinkable circumstances -- as fascinated as I am by matters of psychology, I find my thoughts and coping mechanisms to be really, really interesting.

Here is the thread with the comments of all posters on the Benoit tragedy from the STN message board.

Here's Part One of my thoughts, posted at 7:10 PM EST on June 25, when the earliest details were making their way out to the public:

"I am the typical internet smark. Benoit was my favorite.

I am just numb right now. So many in this industry drop dead early that it gets easier to accept all the time, no matter how much you were a fan of theirs. As with the Owen Hart tragedy, I'm struck by the fact that we're probably diminished as human beings for continuing to support an industry that takes such a toll on people. But I'll keep watching, as will 99.9% of us, so it's a sad commentary, I guess. I guess by next week we'll all start justifying again about how it's the life they chose.

I am taping tonight's RAW and will probably rewatch it a bunch of times. I know that Benoit spoke of his wrestling being like art, which is what I loved about him. I'd like to think that he would find it fitting and flattering that we will remember him for his body of work, but I can't be sure of that.

And I really, really hope that there was not any foul play here, although it certainly doesn't look good.

RIP, thoughts and prayers to the family."

Here's Part Two of my thoughts, posted at 9:48 PM EST that same night reflecting on Benoit and some unfortunate foreshadowing on my part:

"Carbon monoxide could certainly be possible, but since I tend to look at everything in life in terms of probability, here's what I wonder: what are the odds of something that would be noteworthy enough to make the news, albeit maybe just regional news, happening to somebody of his level of (relative) fame? It's not often that something that random happens to someone even marginally famous.

But, man, I really hope that this was just an accident. As horrible as this is with the three of them passing away, to have it be from any murder/suicide would be simply unbearable. To have arguably the greatest wrestler's wrestler ever be remembered not for what he gave us all these years but to be remembered by the mainstream as an unseemly tabloid headline -- I can't even fathom that.

As an example of what I mean by that, my best friend is not a wrestling fan, doesn't have much use for the business. But he was with me one time when I flipped on wrestling and he said, "That guy's your favorite wrestler? He's pretty good." I don't want people like my buddy who don't know or care about the business to know him as a tabloid headline.

But if it was ... I do believe that some good can come out of anything, no matter how small a trace. If this was a gruesome act of horror perpetrated from within that family, the slime from this will stick to the business and Vince won't get away with rationalizing what this business does to people. The long-overdue PR hit for operating the business in such a subhuman manner will come. As I said to a friend tonight, "The business is guilty until proven innocent." I think that's the only reason that we could even entertain the notion of he or his wife perpetrating this.

Again, I don't believe the murder/suicide theory, probably because I can't bring myself to do so. I think the police are obligated to start by checking for foul play, so I make no assumptions based on that.

I'll always remember Wrestlemania XX, watching it at Harpos, with all of us making the salt and pepper shakers jump on the table at the end as we pounded our fists yelling, "Tap, tap, tap." I can only speak for myself, but I was cynical enough to believe that HHH wasn't going to put him over, so I was so overjoyed when he did. I'll also remember getting my picture taken with him at the first Pillman tribute show (damn, when you add Pillman and Benoit to the "extended family," the Harts are right up there with the Von Erichs for tragedy). And I'll remember the fans giving him that shocking standing ovation at the end of the 2003 Royal Rumble match against Kurt Angle. That match was designed not to get him over, but to give Angle at strong win heading into Wrestlemania XIX. The spontaneous reaction was the ultimate rebuttal to those who thought his alleged lack of mic skills would keep the people from getting behind him enough to become a main event star.

We're definitely going to talk about him on the next Lounge on July 1. I'm not saying that in the usual manner of my FDH promotion on these boards, because I'll honestly tell you that it may not be our greatest segment ever. I just need to vent a little bit to feel better personally."

Here's Part Three of my thoughts, posted at 11:28 PM EST that same night, as the unthinkable is settling in:

"Bizarre indeed, Liam. This is truly uncharted territory for this business.

It seems that we can't run from the truth of what apparently happened anymore. The phrase "where there's smoke, there's fire" really applies in instances such as these. Too much has come out, albeit on background, from police sources who must know everything already.

There are two innocent victims in a horrific murder/suicide and my favorite wrestler, someone who I admired for his work ethic and for his leadership skills in the locker room, is not among the innocents. It's a sign of how quickly things move in the Internet age that I've come to grips with this in a matter of hours. The trick now, for me and for so many, will be to separate our pleasurable memories that Benoit gave us from the man who murdered his wife and young son. We didn't know his true nature at the time, so we're not culpable for having admired him. But is it still possible on any level to admire his work?

I never thought that admiring a Chris Benoit match would be like trying to find merit in a painting by Hitler, but here we are."

Here's Part Four of my thoughts, posted at 7:42 AM EST the next morning, as the anger and betrayal are in full effect:

"Mike, I don't begrudge you that perspective. We all deal with things in our own way. I just don't share it.

I'll never deny what he did in that ring and the fact that I thought he was the best, largely because he could work any style convincingly. But as I said above, my enjoyment could only come because I did not know what he was capable of -- killing his wife and young, young son, these are such cowardly acts ... for me personally (and a great many others, I suspect), I'd be right there with you in mourning him if his final acts on this earth were not so despicable.

It's going to be so surreal going back and tracking in this thread what we said with what we knew at the time, because I was full of heartfelt sentiments towards him with my first few thoughts I posted. But now?

F Chris Benoit."

Here's Part Five of my thoughts, posted at 10:28 PM EST that next night. In this post, I recopy a column about the situation that I wrote for our FantasyDrafthelp.com blog:

"Posting here since word broke has been a kind of therapy for many of us. Certainly, my posts trace my thought process at the various stages of what I knew whe. It was kind of like an instant time capsule for all of us. I am glad that nobody on these boards has displayed the kind of idiocy I'm routinely seeing in other corners of the internet.

I did collect my thoughts somewhat for a short essay on the FDH blog. I'm reprinting here for the benefit of anyone struggling to make sense of their own thoughts right now.

'The eulogy that wasn't

24 hours ago, I was preparing a written tribute in this space for Chris Benoit and his family. In an admission that will admittedly brand me an internet smart mark, I will say that he was my favorite wrestler. The operative word here is "was."

My words were going to express the notion that my all-time favorite athlete, Steve Yzerman, retired almost a year ago and that I wrote a tribute to him. I was prepared to express how much harder it is to pay tribute to someone who's passed away than to someone who's retired ... until I learned the circumstances.

There are a million different perspectives out there about this tragedy, and I can respect all of them -- except for the immature clowns on message boards who either want to use the blood of innocents to bash pro wrestling fans, or, on the other extreme, to defend Benoit as "a good man who became sick at the end" and can't let go of the man they wanted to believe existed.

For those who only now know him as a tabloid headline, let me give you the meat of the tribute I was going to write for him. Chris Benoit was a man who said that he treated his profession as art, and many of us loved him for the way that he applied that philosophy to his matches. He almost never had a bad match, even with the least talented wrestlers in the industry. He could work any style in a believable manner. He gave us some of the greatest moments in wrestling history, whether it be the shocking standing ovation he was given at the end of the 2003 Royal Rumble, his Wrestlemania XX triumphant moment with the late, great Eddy Guerrero, his J-Cup highlights from Japan or any hundred other matches. He worked hard, set an example of how to be a professional for wrestlers coming up, and really shined with his leadership in that capacity.

Now for the parts I wasn't going to include ...

Because of what he did in the ring, the fact that his colleagues invariably cited him as one of the most respected wrestlers in the industry (the quintessential "wrestler's wrestler," if you will) and his quiet, humble nature, we all overlooked a few things. Like the fact that he got together with his current wife Nancy at the expense of her existing marriage (and his relationship with the mother of his other children) during the infamous "Kevin Sullivan booked his own divorce" period 11 years ago. And the obvious use of steroids, HGH, or any similar product to pack the unnatural amount of musculature on his relatively slight frame. Nobody's perfect, right?

Well, that's an obvious understatement right now.

In the end, Chris Benoit was all of those things, and that was all we knew at the time -- so it was valid to look at him with the great appreciation that we did. I don't begrudge myself the fun I had at the time from his efforts.

But now? Appreciating Chris Benoit for his work would be like appreciating Adolf Hitler for some paintings that he might have created. Benoit murdered his wife and child in cold blood before taking the coward's way out at the end of a rope. The details of last weekend, combined with confirmation of previous spousal abuse that was not publicly known until now, conspire to make this story keep getting more nauseating by the hour. He deserves none of the glory that many of us were ready to give him when we first learned of his demise prior to absorbing the gory details. He deserves ... well, exactly what he's getting right now and for eternity. Let's leave it at that.

We who appreciated Chris Benoit saw in him the good side of an industry plagued by repetitive and numbing premature death and general sleaze. We thought he stood for the positive side of what is admittedly a morally challenged industry. But in the end, he exemplified to the "nth degree" the open sewer that the business really is. It's a sad measure of how addictive the entertainment can be that so few of us (and I don't exempt myself from this) will abandon it in long-overdue outrage.'"

In the span of under thirty hours, I digested the fact that a man I greatly respected, someone who had provided me so many hours of great entertainment, turned out to be a vile, sick individual unbeknown to us all. My earlier thoughts were still of a type of hero worship that makes me wince to revisit it -- before my outrage kicked in fully. One of the truly outstanding posters on that board, Liam in England, said it best so succinctly when he called the evening the news broke the most surreal night of his 14 years of being a wrestling fan.

My lasting thought on the matter is that I am saddened by how little has changed. The WWE claims to be enforcing a strict drug policy, but still pushes wrestlers constantly with a 'roided-up look to them. If the greatest shock to the system the business ever endured, a matter that might be termed the "9/11 of the wrestling business" (not nearly on that scale, certainly, but purely in terms of the sadness and depression it caused to so many) couldn't bring lasting changes to benefit the performers who bring us such fun, what possibly could?

More of Vince McMahon's hypocrisy

By Rick Morris

Before addressing the main point here, the rampant, constant hypocrisy of Vincent Kennedy McMahon, let's quickly examine a side issue. We at FantasyDrafthelp.com believe in analyzing all matters, not just fantasy sports, on a spectrum from most likely to least likely outcomes. Having said that, there are four possibilities for the "miracle comeback" of John Cena, who returned to the ring less than four months after allegedly suffering a major pectoral injury that was supposed to sideline him a year -- and those scenarios are in this exact order of likelihood:

^ This "injury" was a work from start to finish (scars can be kayfabed!).
^ The "injury" was real, but hyped way beyond the level of seriousness so as to obtain the desired shock return.
^ Cena was hurt, but cut a lot of corners, health-wise (ALLEGEDLY!) in his rehab and return.
^ Cena was actually hurt as severely as advertised and did have a supremely fortunate rehabilitation that legitimately got him back much sooner than anticipated.

Let's now move on to the main point at hand. The notion that Vinny Mac is a hucksterish hypocrite of the first order is well beyond dispute. Whether he is shedding crocodile tears for the premature deaths and chronic addictions that his company has contributed to with regards to its performers, whether he is crying about the predatory business practices of Turner Broadcasting when he went after the old territorial promoters the same way in the '80s, whether he is whining about vendettas from federal prosecutors while allowing revenge politics to thrive in his own company, Vince McMahon has always been in a league of his own when it comes to saying one thing and doing another.

But, as strange as it may sound when addressing the role in history of the only man to preside over two national wrestling booms, his biggest and most grand hypocritical pronouncement of all has been to claim that he has his finger on the pulse of his audience and that he reacts accordingly. We saw yet again last night at the Royal Rumble how false this truly is when he allowed his company to drop the ball on the Jeff Hardy WWE Title reign that his crowds have been clamoring for so much.

Jeff Hardy was deprived of his ascension to the top of the company (and yes, the top spot on RAW is and always will be the pinnacle of WWE) just a few weeks of the thirty-year anniversary that Superstar Billy Graham passed the torch to Bob Backlund -- with both matches taking place at Madison Square Garden, no less! Vince McMahon played an opposite role in both scenarios, proving that he is not consistent in his actions whatsoever.

Recently, I viewed the excellent documentary "20 Years Too Soon: The Superstar Billy Graham Story," and I also read parts of Graham's memoirs. First of all, it should be mentioned just as a side note that Graham was not actually 20 years ahead of his time, it was more like 10 because his colorful muscleman gimmick was the mid-to-late '80s prototype. But I do believe what Vince McMahon said on the DVD: Superstar would have been a huge phenomenon on the scene if he had been given a babyface run as champion.

Take yourself back to February 1978 for a moment. Graham had been drawing huge heat and sellout crowds as WWWF Champion for his entire 10-month reign. As an early forerunner of the "cool heel," he was drawing the type of appreciation from fans that could have led to him becoming a red-hot main event face. One suggestion internally was for onetime tag team partner Ivan Koloff to attack Graham, officially turning the Superstar into a "good guy." I believe that this feud would have drawn insane heat, because the Sergeant Slaughter/Iron Sheik feud of 1984 proved that geopolitics could draw at the box office and the prospect of Graham going toe-to-toe with a Hated Russkie back in '78 would have been quite similar.

Superstar and Vince were on the losing end of that argument, however, because Vince's dad, Vince McMahon Senior was still the boss at that time and he had promised Bob Backlund a title run. The classic wrestling old-timer, Vince Senior simply didn't possess the imagination to understand how big Graham could be. He was wedded to the version of the wholesome face champion anchor. Bruno Sammartino had held the belt for approximately 11 of the 14 years leading into Graham's reign, with Latino face Pedro Morales occupying the title for most of the rest of the time. Bob Backlund, dubbed "The All-American Boy," seemed merely to be the logical successor to this lineage once Graham's "transitional heel" reign was over.

But the strong reactions Graham got at the time argue for the case that he would have been huge as a "good guy" champion just because he was so much different from the rest back in '78. While he never could have reached the status of an '80s Hulk Hogan had WWWE remained merely a regional Northeast territory, he could have exploited New York City, the world's greatest media market, to cement the area as the most dominant one anywhere. Vince Junior is absolutely right that his father and the other cronies in the inner circle missed the boat on Superstar Billy Graham's potential.

Graham makes the point convincingly in his memoirs that Backlund was the beneficiary of almost unprecedented help from the promotion during his almost six-year run on top (leaving aside the question of whether Inoki legitimately was the titleholder for a fortnight back in '79). Backlund continued to sell out all around the circuit, but benefited from the strategic positioning on cards of Andre the Giant, Jimmy Snuka after his hugely successful face turn and Bruno Sammartino's white-hot farewell feud with Larry Zbyszko. Previous champs had not needed that kind of assistance from the bookers; they had always been the predominant focus of the promotion. Billy Graham wouldn't have needed that help either had his wish been granted.

So Vince Junior made what we can probably hypothesize would have been the right call in 1978 with the man he said was 20 years ahead of his time. Coincidentally, 20 years later, Vince put the belt on another man being reacted to hugely by the crowds and not created by the company. Stone Cold Steve Austin was a completely self-made man in the WWF, overcoming the internal perception of him as a mid-carder for life and establishing himself as a made man in 1996-97. In '98, Vince listened to the people and made Austin the face main event anchor that they wanted him to be. Austin built on the foundation of the NWO and DX and made himself (along with perhaps The Rock later on) the face of the late '90s wrestling craze.

Flash forward another ten years.

The "Attitude Era" boom has been dead for most of the decade. Historians will argue about where it breathed its last; I believe that I saw it live and in person at the "InVasion" of 2001 in Cleveland when Steve Austin joined the WCW/ECW alliance in an infamous booking decision that killed wrestling's ultimate dream angle. Since then, Vince has thrown everything he could at the wall, elevating formerly-derided "Vanilla Midgets" to World Title status (Benoit and Eddy), trying to ride the remaining stars of the '90s (HHH, HBK, Undertaker), pushing newcomers to the moon (Brock Lesnar), toying endlessly with nostalgia (Hulk Hogan comebacks) and getting strongly behind homegrown products (Cena, Batista). None of these moves have brought the WWE back to the mainstream status it enjoyed twice before.

And to be fair, there's no evidence to suggest that Jeff Hardy is the missing link, ready to become a household word and carry the company to the third national boom. He might not be the "game-changer" the company needs -- but the aforementioned options have had their chances to step up to that level and none of them have succeeded.

Vince and his daughter, Stephanie (the infamous head of creative control), pushed Hardy to the main event in a cautious, almost-experimental way. They were certainly not cramming him down the throats of the people; rather, they put him in circumstances where he would be able to rise or fall based on the reactions he drew. He shot up like a rocket as the crowds made it clear in no uncertain terms that they were hungering for the dramatic change that a title reign from this superstar would promise.

And yet, his rise to main event status was just a tease in the end, as Hardy was built up merely to be fed to mediocre heel champion Randy Orton, who has himself been built up merely to be fed to the returning hero Cena. Essentially, the company passed on elevating Hardy so that they could put Cena back in the #1 face spot posthaste (technically, now that Cena is cashing in his title shot at No Way Out in February instead of WrestleMania, he could face Hardy for the WWE Title at 'Mania -- but there's no way the company is going to put Hardy in with Cena and even if they did, it wouldn't be to have Hardy go over in the end).

So Vince McMahon, who prides himself on being the ultimate visionary, has shown that he only listens to the public when he feels like it. Rather than take a chance on Jeff Hardy, the acrobatic youngster with unique (mostly non-verbal) charisma and a fundamentally-sound but exciting style in the ring, McMahon is staying with the tried and true: Cena, the man who has improved greatly in the ring, but been neutered by the creative department. When you see him get booed relentlessly by significant parts of the crowd, it's almost impossible to reconcile that with the fact that he was such a cool heel in the fall of '03 that the company was all but forced to turn him. Young males, perhaps the most critical part of the fanbase, boo him in significant fashion (especially in major markets) because he is seen as having the worst characteristics of Hogan (Chain Gang = Hulkamanics 2K8), Backlund (wholesome character over the last few years, none of those raunchy raps that got him over with the crowd), the Rock'n'Roll Express (annoyingly beloved by kiddies and teenyboppers) and Hogan/Backlund together (he's the face who isn't believable in terms of being in significant jeopardy because he ALWAYS overcomes the odds and keeps his belt). Jeff Hardy, a man who was once defined in terms of fan perception as being the choice of those teenyboppers and kids, has transcended his early fan appeal to become widely popular across the board. And yet, Vince McMahon hasn't the slightest curiosity about what would happen with Hardy at the helm -- because in the end, crowd sentiment doesn't matter to him if it goes against his preconceived notions.

On the Vince McMahon Devious Behavior Scale, that may not rate that high. But it does serve to remind us yet again of his complete hypocrisy and the extent to which his ego compromises the final product in the ring.

WWE lost opportunities of 2007

By Rick Morris

In a previous column here, I explored the phenomenon of WWE transitional periods, when the company has been in an obvious flux between one era and another. Subsequent events have made me think about how many times the company just flat out blew it in 2007 as they are lurching into their newest redefining stage.

Company defenders will be quick to speak of the injury epidemic, with a great many wrestlers going down including HHH, John Cena, Undertaker and Edge. I'll grant that there's nothing that the company could have done to avoid those performers going on the shelf. And also for the purposes of this discussion, I'll leave aside anything having to do with the Benoit tragedy because I want to stick to the crystal-clear issues that the company could have dealt with but did not.

1. Getting the belt off of John Cena before the October PPV. The company was left in a position it hates to be in, having a title change result from something other than events inside the squared circle. Ever since Cena came to RAW in June of '05, he has been fighting an uphill battle to stay popular among key elements of the fanbase because of the watering-down of his once-edgy character and the invulnerability he portrays since he almost ALWAYS wins every title match. As mentioned earlier, there's nothing the company could have done about Cena's injury. But they could have helped his character stay fresher along the way by programming him to drop the belt earlier in the year (sometime after WrestleMania, as I'll admit that as the cornerstone of the company he needed to win there) and get into a chase to regain it. That is clearly where they were going with Randy Orton this autumn, but it would have been much later than it should have happened. As it is now, the large portion of young males in the audience reacts poorly to him because he comes off to them as a horrible amalgam of Ricky Morton (appealing to the kids and teeny-boppers), Bob Backland (with his super-wholesome Middle America persona) and Hulk Hogan (Chain Gang = Hulkamanics 2K8). Notwithstanding the fact that his matches do have incredible heat because of the mixed emotions he stirs in the crowd, the company is not going to be in the position they want to be in of having him pick them up and carry them on their back ala Hogan or Austin unless he gets greater acceptance from the fanbase.

2. Not properly giving Lashley the rub from Donald Trump. What an incredible opportunity the WWE had with Lashley at WrestleMania -- and how they blew it. Has it ever -- ever? -- been established exactly why Lashley and Trump teamed up to stick it to Vince McMahon at WrestleMania 23? We know that Trump was somewhat impressed with this young physical specimen and thought he could get the job done, but that's about it. I'm still waiting to hear Lashley's motivation. How did we not see a series of videos with these men, ala Hogan and Mr. T at the first WrestleMania? Not that we would have seen them training together, that's not the point, but something, anything to establish a bond between them and a tangible sense of what each man could do for the other. How sad that the company put Lashley in this position to get him the benefit of association with Donald Trump and their connection was pretty much forgotten by the next week.

3. Hot-shotting Chris Jericho's return. Internet rumors speak of HHH's dissatisfaction with the perception of Jericho as a savior returning to bail out the company from hard times. If so, given the disproportionate influence he has that we smart marks bemoan so much, that does an awful lot to explain how Jericho went from the eagerly anticipated breath of fresh air (one that many thought erroneously at the time had been dragged out too long in teasing, ala the Fred Thompson presidential launch) to just another wrestler in less than six weeks. Remember, when Jericho made his company debut in August of '99, the one that the WWE tried so hard to replicate, his first promo was against The Rock. Did he face him right away? No, they wouldn't lock up on pay-per-view for a long time. So Jericho's promo against Randy Orton, while absolutely the right thing to do, did NOT mean that he had to be rushed into the main event match the next month. Given that the company is completely in the annual mode of getting the present champion to WrestleMania in a few months, there was no way that he was going to topple Orton in December and he would lose his heat right off the bat in failing, no matter what lame attempts the company would conjure up to "keep him strong." They should have dragged out the title chase to WrestleMania with Orton (and perhaps the "authority figures") throwing obstacles in his way to build to a truly epic main event at the Citrus Bowl. Instead, Orton will end up in a situation that is guaranteed to be much less anticipated than the payoff to a long Jericho return tour.

4. Giving Mr. McMahon a full-size son. I will admit that the payoff to the illegitimate son storyline is working better than I would have thought, with Hornswoggle massively over and Finlay getting the chance I have long been calling for for him to become a tough, popular, fighting face. But the in-ring payoff, where the true money can be made, would have been much greater had the (initially reported) plan of Mr. Kennedy or another wrestler on the main event brink getting that association been adopted. There are rumors that the angle might be changed at some point to reflect the test results being altered and an actual full-sized wrestler being put in that spot. After the Hornswoggle storyline peaks, probably at WrestleMania, I would urge them to do exactly that.

5. Booking CM Punk as a midcarder when he holds the ECW title. We have long seen how internal politics dictate how brands are presented, whether it be the WCW and ECW brands getting buried early on in the 2001 invasion angle or the way that all vestiges of the "old ECW" were long ago blotted out with virtual bleach. But the booking of Punk, one of the most promising wrestlers in the entire company and a future main eventer on a brand the company actually respects, is beyond befuddling. This is not a standard example of a face champion needing to show some vulnerability in order to keep some sympathy heat. Punk has been laid out time and time again by the company superheavyweights, and when he teams up with Kane to face them, he is routinely presented as the least capable man in the ring. Many observers have long called for the company to stop damaging Smackdown by treating it as a distant second banana to the RAW brand. The company's evident "solution" is to let the Smackdown brand bully the ECW brand in terms of public perception so that Smackdown at least looks superior to something. Left unsaid is why anyone at all should care anything about what happens in ECW when the champion and most of its wrestlers are presented as midcarders relative to the "Smackdown superstars."

WrestleMania booking Version 2.0

By Rick Morris

As I did back in October, I’m going to post an updated assessment of what would constitute a good WrestleMania 24 card. Additionally, I’ve got some thoughts on some directions the company should take beyond then. As always, I assume that the majority of these ideas will never be used by the company and an inferior collection of booking plans will probably be implemented.

^ WWE Championship Match: Randy Orton vs. HHH. I’d have rather seen a slow burn with the Orton/Jericho feud to WrestleMania, but that got hot-shotted right out of the gate – and predictably did nothing to improve business. This match clearly is the one the company is planning, and I don’t have a big problem with that. Since ‘Mania traditionally (with very few exceptions) ends with a big babyface win, this one should go on last. Where my plan likely diverges from WWE’s: I would not keep the belt on HHH for long, instead putting it back on Orton before John Cena’s return. A great three-way feud between face Cena, heel Orton and tweener HHH could well result and take the company all the way up to WrestleMania 25.

^ World Title Match: Edge vs. Undertaker. This match could not only be billed as “Streak vs. Title,” it could also be promoted as “Streak vs. Streak” – because Edge has not lost a singles or tag team match at ‘Mania, just last year’s “Money In the Bank.” A cocky heel like Edge would be expected to make the outlandish claim that his streak was as impressive as Undertaker’s, so I hope that this element becomes a part of the storyline when this match goes down as expected. I would like to see Undertaker “pass the torch” in this match and do (at least a relatively clean) job to Edge, who would benefit immensely from the accomplishment. With the great year that ‘Taker had in 2007, a loss here wouldn’t have to lead to his fade from the main event scene, and intriguing storylines could result in terms of ambitious heels trying to block him from getting back into the title picture.

^ ECW Title Match: CM Punk vs. JBL. Since the company has established that JBL can get involved with another brand’s matches during a pay-per-view, I’d like to see him somehow weasel his way into the #1 contendership during the February No Way Out event. The storyline explanation could be simple and effective: JBL, as a longtime ECW hater, doesn’t like Punk, who is an ECW Original at least in spirit. Backstage vignettes with Tommy Dreamer and Balls Mahoney praising Punk as a worthy torch carrier for ECW would give Punk even more of a rub and would enrage General Manager Estrada, JBL and everyone else looking to see a “new ECW” completely replace the old. Since JBL needs a WrestleMania match befitting his return from retirement and Punk needs a victory over an established name (and one who can give him a good match to boot), this match fills several needs. I would keep JBL on the Raw roster all the way through the feud, however, making this match one of the cross-brand matches we have seen at ‘Mania since the brand split. JBL and Punk can cross back and forth between the two shows to advance the feud.

^ Flair Must Retire If He Loses: Ric Flair vs. Batista. With Batista apparently out of the Smackdown main event picture for the big show and needing a substantive program, I’d like to see Edge and Vickie Guerrero conspire to pit these two longtime friends against each other. What could make the match more interesting is if their efforts have an effect on Batista and make him bloodthirsty at the thought of attaining such a precious achievement: retiring the ultimate legend. Having Batista heel on Flair heading into the encounter would add all the necessary heat and then some. Additionally, it would set up an Orton/Batista vs. HHH/Flair “Evolution Reunion Match” on Saturday Night’s Main Event heading into Orlando – providing the ultimate balance between giving away a great match on TV and effectively promoting two of your biggest matches on your biggest card of the year. The company’s plan apparently is for Flair to lose this match – and while my preference would be for him to drop a main event match on another pay-per-view instead of having the impact of his retirement match diluted by being just another in a long list of “WrestleMania moments” – so I think that if they go this route, Batista could benefit from this honor the most. It would then set up the “respect angle” where the two could reunite with Flair as Batista’s manager.

^ United States Title Match: MVP vs. Matt Hardy. This one sets up pretty easily. Between MVP’s heart issues of last summer and Hardy’s recent appendectomy, a climactic match between these two has been promised but not delivered for some time. Few are complaining, though, because these two play off one another so well in and out of the ring and each will emerge from this feud from a stronger position than when they entered. Given all of the buildup, Hardy needs this win, although there should be little doubt of MVP getting the belt back shortly and having another nice US Title run on his way to the main event. Plus, once MVP regains the belt, the WWE website can actually feel free to acknowledge MVP’s title victory this time!

^ Money In the Bank Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Rey Mysterio vs. John Morrison vs. Shelton Benjamin. Spots in this match should be awarded by interbrand matches on RAW, Smackdown and ECW on Sci-Fi. The injection of past main-eventers into this match will hopefully reinforce the importance of the guaranteed title shot. Ultimately, Benjamin should win to set up a good summer title feud vs. Punk in ECW.

^ Women’s Title Match, Lumberjill Rules: Beth Phoenix vs. Candice Michelle. This bout sets up nicely as a revenge match, as Candice should be fully recovered by WrestleMania. The “Glamazon” should win to solidify her strong title reign, but the feud should continue with Candice still possibly being the diva to knock Phoenix off the throne at some point. The “Lumberjill Rules” should be used for every subsequent women’s title match at ‘Mania so that all of the divas can be showcased in one segment.

^ Brand Rules Battle Royal. This would be a good use of all undercard wrestlers not participating in other matches: a “team battle royal” with 10 wrestlers from each brand all wearing matching T-shirts and trying to ensure that one or more wrestlers from their show will be in the ring at the very end. This is a good showcase opportunity for some of the “monster” wrestlers like Kane, Great Khali and Umaga. At the end, I’d have Santino Marella as the sole survivor, dumping out Carlito gratuitously along with another wrestler Carlito is about to eliminate – so that Santino can be the sole RAW wrestler to bask in the glory and foreshadowing eventual dissention with the cool one.

^ Finlay & Hornswaggle vs. Vince & Shane McMahon. The travails of “Mr. McMahon’s illegitimate son” seem to be building to a WrestleMania resolution, and there’s no better way to pull this off than to make a tag match involving his friend, the very over new face Finlay. This match could bring plenty of comedy moments, highspots from Shane O’Mac and great wrestling execution from Finlay. In the end, Finlay and Hornswaggle would come out on top, hopefully with a very memorable ending worthy of fitting into the lineage of “Mr. McMahon comeuppance moments.”

^ Kennedy vs. Lashley. This match would fit as a pure revenge affair. The storyline of Kennedy injuring Lashley last summer as a steppingstone is ready-made for a ‘Mania blowoff once Lashley has reestablished himself on the scene. Lashley would need to win, but not in a squash, as Kennedy appears to be a valued part of the future roster as well.

As for future developments, the first move I’d make would be to return the “WWE Draft” to the RAW that airs eight days after WrestleMania. That would allow the company to use all of their programs immediately after the big show to promote the draft show. Rather than engage in the wholesale and pointless shuffling of past years, I’d limit the event to two acquisitions per roster:

^ To RAW: Batista/Flair and The Edgeheads. Batista’s return to RAW with Flair as his manager would come at an interesting time, with HHH fending off Orton for the WWE Title and the entire former Evolution stable in the title picture for the first time ever. The Edgeheads should be separated from the champ, as I am very pessimistic that they will get over in their present role and all they will end up doing is leeching heat from the holder of the World Title. I’m not opposed to Edge having associates, but they should not be wrestlers who were previously just a step up from being glorified jobbers. JBL never gained anything by having wrestlers previously treated as non-entities as his “Cabinet.” The Edgeheads weren’t ready to be put into their role, and should move to RAW to join the tag team picture for the interim.

^ To Smackdown: Chris Jericho and Jeff Hardy. Both of these stars would make excellent foils for Edge and each would add interesting personality and great workrate to a World Title picture that already has both in the current beltholder. For once, Smackdown should emerge from the draft with a boost instead of gigantic holes that have been inflicted.

^ To ECW: Umaga and The Highlanders. Umaga is being stripped of his air of invincibility now that he has settled in as a “next-level heel” for top faces out of the WWE Title picture. A move to ECW, a feud with CM Punk and a reunion of sorts with General Manager Estrada would freshen him up greatly. The Highlanders are at the point of serving no purpose whatsoever on RAW and should be shuttled to ECW, where they can be part of the WWE Tag Team Title picture thanks to the talent sharing between ECW and Smackdown. The team might never be over enough to merit a title run, but they should get one last chance on a new show to prove or disprove that notion.